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Hddress of 
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Ht the Reunion of the 
Society of the Hrmy 
of the Cumberland 
Louisville, Ky., October, 1901 




ADDRESS 



OF 



GENERAL ARCHIBALD BLAKELEY 



AT THE REUNION OF THE 



SOCIETY OF THE ARMY OF THE CUMBERLAND 



Louisville, Ky., October, 1901 



CINCINNATI 

THE ROBERT CLARKE COMPANY 

1902 



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ANNUAL ADDRESS. 



Mr. President and Comrades — Was the removal of 
Sherman from the command of our infant army right or 
wrong, wise or unwise? 

Who killed Zollicoffer? 

Did Buell save Grant from defeat at Pittsburgh 
Landing and Shiloh? 

Was it the fault of Buell that Bragg turned his left 
on the Tennessee and precipitated the racing campaign of 
both armies to Kentucky in 1862? 

Who commanded the troops in the action at Perryville 
thirty-nine years ago yesterday? 

Was Perryville a victory or defeat for the Union arms ? 

Was the removal of Buell from the command of our 
army right or wrong, wise or unwise? 

Why was Rosecrans' right turned upon his rear and 
center at Stone River? 

Was any one blameworthy in the issuance or execution 
of the order "Close upon Reynolds and support him?" 

Were Rosecrans, McCook and Crittenden, or either 
of them, justified in leaving the battle-field at Chickamauga 
during the Sunday fight? 

Was the battle of Chickamauga a victory or defeat for 
the Union arms? 

Did General William S. Rosecrans or General 
William F. Smith select the location for the pontoon 
bridge across the Tennessee River at Brown's Ferry? 

Was the removal of General Rosecrans from the 



Army of the Cumberland. 



command of the Army of the Cumberland right or wrong, 
wise or unwise? 

In the battle of Lookout Mountain, what troops at- 
tained the highest position? 

Did the Army of the Cumberland assault the heights of 
Missionary Ridge with or without orders, and who first 
reached the summit? 

Who captured DeLong Place? 

At the time of this charge, had Bragg's center been 
weakened by the withdrawal of troops to resist Sherman 
on his right? 

In the division of the troops between Sherman and 
Thomas, after the Atlanta campaign, was Thomas fairly 
or unfairly treated? 

Who commanded the fighting line at Franklin? 

When Thomas was peremptorily ordered to move im- 
mediately on Hood at Nashville, was he right or wrong in 
disobeying the order until he got his horses shod? 

Was the general government or controlling military 
power inimical to our army or its leaders? 

Were necessary re-inforcements or supplies at any 
time willfully withheld? 

Was the assignment of Thomas to the Department of 
the Pacific a reflection upon that great and glorious soldier? 

These, and cognate questions, have been discussed ad 
libitum for over a third of a century, and in my judgment 
it is high time they were relegated to the realms of res ad 
judicata : except in so far as it may become necessary to 
refer to them in the consideration of what I conceive to be 
the paramount question for all survivors of the Army of 
the Cumberland, today, and for all other days hereafter, 
until our last, lone comrade totters into his grave ! 



Annual Address. 3 



This question is : " What will be the place of the 
Army of the Cumberland in the history of the great Re- 
bellion, now commonly called the American Civil War?" 

Will its place be major or minor? 

Will it be first, second, third, fourth ; or will it have 
any place at all in the story of that wonderful transaction? 

My comrades, it is not enough that our army did its 
whole duty bravely and well, but we should see to it that 
its history shall pass down to all future generations, untar- 
nished by falsehood and unminimized by the omission of 
the truth. 

' ' Suppressio veri or expressio falsi ' ' should not blacken 
its pages. 

The remarks I propose to make to you today, are in- 
tended to apply to the paramount question aforestated. 

It had been the night dream, the day dream and the 
fond hope of the disunionists that the dividing line be- 
tween the North and South should be that of Mason and 
Dixon from the Delaware to the Ohio ; the Ohio to the 
Mississippi ; the Mississippi to the northeast corner of 
Missouri ; the north line of Missouri ; the west line of 
Missouri to Arkansas ; the north line of Arkansas, thence 
westwardly including what is now New Mexico, Indian 
Territory, Oklahoma and Arizona, to the Mexican Border. 

It was to this ideal line, impulsive disunionists rushed 
when first called to arms. 

By the time hard knocks came to be given and taken, 
by the time great battles had to be fought, cooler heads, 
calmer judgments under skillful commanders, had retired 
their line to one extending from the lower Potomac and 
the Chesapeake Bay to the Mississippi River. 

The Mississippi, with its broad expanse of water, 



Army of the Cumberland. 



rugged bluffs, isolated islands and miry swamps, was the 
real left of the Confederate fighting line ; accentuated by 
the Confederate Government placing upon that river under 
able commanders, an army, second only to that under Lee 
on their right flank. 

True, there were lines extending west of the Missis- 
sippi on which battles were fought and much good work 
done subsidiary in the contest then submitted to the arbit- 
rament of arms. 

The line from the Potomac to the Mississippi was 
strong by nature and strengthened by the ready hands of 
willing workers. 

Its salients bristled with all then known instruments 
for offensive and defensive war. 

Into this line the Confederacy built its best brain, 
blood, and white muscle. 

Back of it and westward, the Confederate Government 
had military and civic control of one million, ninety-five 
thousand, six hundred and thirty-two square miles of terri- 
tory — a richer or more beautiful land could not be found 
under the sun. 

Rivers ran from its towering mountains to the sea — 
rivers whose waters were seldom lessened by summer's 
heat or winter's frost. 

Its sea line was more indeed than the line graciously 
allowed by the Confederate Government to the old Union 
on the Atlantic Coast. 

Its landings, wharves, ports, quays and harbors with 
the boundless Ocean, gave them commerce and intercourse 
with the nations of the earth. 

On this territory they had a population of ten million, 
three hundred and seventy-eight thousand, eight hundred 



Annual Address. 



and sixty, all practically a unit in the determination to 
win or die. 

All prior differences in politics and religion were for- 
gotten ; those fit for military duty in line or command 
hastened to their armies ; the rich with lavish hand threw 
their wealth into the coffers of their government ; ministers, 
preachers, priests and bishops prayed for success, and the 
frenzied passions of the people were intensified by the elo- 
quent appeals of orators and the press for victory and 
vengeance. 

A servient population of four million African slaves, 
loyal to their masters and their masters' cause, sweat their 
very life's blood in ploughing, digging, planting, hoeing 
and reaping the crops necessary for the maintenance of 
their army and people, producing at the same time, a 
staple that commanded the gold in nearly all the markets 
of the world ; a product then deemed essential and indis- 
pensable for the prosperity and well being of all industrial 
nations and peoples. 

A generation of educated, intelligent, beautiful and 
enthusiastic women cast themselves into the Southern 
cause with an abandon and bravery exceeding that of 
Spartan Mothers. 

And more, the Confederacy had the sympathy and 
help of at least one-fourth of the people of the North, in- 
deed you could hardly turn around in those days, without 
running against what we called a " Copperhead." 

I have often thought that if the good Lord had taken 
the defenders of the Union of that day as he did Moses to 
a high place and given us a view of what I have so faintly 
described, we would have asked to die as Moses died, and 
to have been buried as Moses was buried ; else, descending 



Army of the Cumberland. 



the slopes of the American Pisgah, we would have chanted 
in mournful refrain the words of the political philosopher 
of New York — " Better let the wayward sisters go." 

It is well that we were not permitted to have that 
view. 

It is well that we did not know the magnitude of the 
work before us. 

What was that work? 

Destroy this great Confederate battle line and all other 
like lines. 

Defeat and disperse the Confederate armies wherever 
found on land or water. 

Retake our forts and all other property of the nation 
held by hostile hands ; carry the Star Spangled Banner 
through every state, county, parish, precinct, town and 
city within the limits of the rebellion : see that the consti- 
tution and laws of the United States of America were en- 
forced and obeyed on every inch of the national territory 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from the Lakes on the 
North to the Gulf on the South. 

In the prosecution of this work our government di- 
vided its military forces, especially those operating on 
land, into armies with geographical designation and terri- 
torial limit. 

Of these there were many, as events ran, however, 
there were three whose work and victories won our cause. 

These were the Army of the Potomac, the Army of the 
Tennessee and the Army of the Cumberland. 

We will not willingly pluck a laurel from the well- 
earned crowns of the other orginizations on land or sea, 
but their work was subordinate to that of the three armies 
named : They struck the vitals, the heart of the rebellion, 



Annual Address. 



while the others operated well and successfully on the 
exteriors. 

An intelligent and impartial study of our four years' 
war will demonstrate the truth of these propositions. 

The Army of the Potomac was set opposite the army of 
General Lee on the Confederate right. 

The Army of the Tennessee was set opposite the Confed- 
erate forces on the Mississippi. 

The Army of the Cumberland was given the post of 
honor and set opposite the Confederate center. 

I understand it to be a military truism, that the cen- 
er is the place of honor. 

Your wings may be broken, but while your center is 
intact the battle is not lost. 

Thus at Stone River, General Thomas had the cen- 
ter ; the right was crushed and doubled on his rear, the 
left was paralyzed, but Thomas held the center until the 
wings were restored and the victory won. 

And so at Chickamauga. 

At the beginning of the fight, Thomas had the left. 
The right was broken and rendered powerless, when 
Thomas suddenly became the center and there was noth- 
ing but center. Thomas cast his magnificent eye over 
that magic semi-circle, the horse-shoe ridge, formed his 
center on it and fought from noon till night, one to four, 
and held the field ! But this is digression. 

Although at the time the Army of the Cumberland was 
assigned the center in this Grand Drama of war, there 
was no large body of troops confronting us ; this was 
accounted for on the absolute belief of the Confederacy 
from Jefferson Davis down, that God Almighty had 
fortified their center by a "concatenation " of hills, ridges, 



8 Army of the Cumberland. 

mountains, rocks, creeks and rivers, requiring but a skir- 
mish line to hold it against the armies of the North. 

Now, for the purpose of answering the questions sub- 
mitted, I propose to examine, briefly, the work of these 
three armies and thereby demonstrate that the greater 
merit is with the Army of the Cumberland. 

In considering this question I will not undertake to 
say what we might have done with greater means. 

We have been saying of our army what we could have 
done if we had been given greater means. 

I will treat that question as past and useless now, and 
in any event it would only lead us into a field of spec- 
ulation. 

If our means had been more abundant we might have 
abused the blessed gift. 

What we did with the means we had, is the ques- 
tion for us today, as well as for our neighbors, right and 
left. 

We will first look at the area of armed occupation of 
each army. 

In this we do not take into account territory over 
which sporadic movements were made, or the routes of 
campaigns not held by continued military occupation. 

Covering too much ground in any of the avocations 
or professions of life is dangerous, and likely to wreck 
him who makes the venture. 

That the same rule holds good in military work need 
not be elaborated in the presence of those familiar with 
the facts and principles of military movements and work. 
Extended area involves dispersion of forces. Dispersion is 
the converse of concentration. 



Annual Address. 



Concentration is the life, essence and controlling con- 
dition for successful military work. 

The Army of the Cumberland covered by armed occupa- 
tion all of Kentucky, East and Middle Tennessee, North 
Alabama and part of Northwestern Georgia. 

A territory greater than that held by either the Army 
of the Potomac or the Army of the Tennessee, and indeed 
nearly as much as that held by both of them. 

We will next consider the population occupying the area 
held by these armies, respectively. 

The populations on the area of the Army of the Potomac 
and the Army of the Tennessee were a unit in opposing the 
occupation and the cause for which our forces came upon 
them. 

These populations were, with few exceptions, double 
dyed, arrant rebels, and proud of it at that. They were 
enemies and could not be trusted. No reliable information 
could be obtained from them. They were spies. They 
were intensified in all this by the belief that they were 
right. 

In conducting military operations in populations of 
this kind, the problem is very simple. While they did not 
take up arms, molest our troops or commit overt acts of 
treason, they were treated as if they did not exist, and 
our armies moved on to find and crush armed and organ- 
ized rebellion. 

General Grant tells us that after Pittsburgh Land- 
ing and Shiloh, he paid but little attention to the popu- 
lation, except to prevent abuses, pillaging, pilfering, etc., 
but through his quartermasters and commissaries he took 
whatever he needed for supplies on the theory that if he did 



10 Army of the Cumberland. 

not take it, when he had passed away the enemy would 
come along and take it. 

And the taking of it by our forces prevented the sup- 
plies from falling into the hands of the enemy. 

Of Grant's movement from the Mississippi to the rear 
of Vicksburg, he says : 

' ' When the movement from Bruinsburg commenced 
we were without a wagon-train. The train, still west of 
the Mississippi, was carried around, with proper escort, by 
a circuitous route from Milliken's Bend to Hard Times, 
seventy or more miles below, and did not get up for some 
days after the battle of Port Gibson. 

"My own horses, headquarters transportation, serv- 
ants, mess-chest, and everything except what I had on, 
were with this train. General A. J. Smith happened to 
have an extra horse at Bruinsburg, which I borrowed with 
a saddletree without upholstering further than stirrups. 
I had no other for nearly a week. 

" It was necessary to have transportation for ammuni- 
tion. Provisions could be taken from the country ; but all 
ammunition that can be carried on the person is soon ex- 
hausted when there is much fighting, I directed, there- 
fore, immediately on landing, that all vehicles and draught 
animals, whether horses, mules or oxen, in the vicinity 
should be collected and loaded to their capacity with am- 
munition. Quite a train was collected during the 30th, 
and a motley train it was. In it could be found fine car- 
riages, loaded nearly to the top with boxes of cartridges 
that had been pitched in promiscuously, drawn by mules 
with plow harness, straw collars, rope lines, etc. ; long- 
coupled wagons, with racks for carrying cotton bales, 
drawn by oxen, and everything that could be found in the 



Annual Address. 11 



way of transportation on a plantation, either for use or 
pleasure. 

' ' The making out of provision returns was stopped for 
the time. No formalities were to retard our progress until 
a position was secured, when time could be spared to 
observe them." 

Grant further says that "Grand Gulf was given up as 
a base. . . . Sherman wrote me of the impossibility 
of supplying our army over a single road, and urged me 
' to stop all troops till your army is partially supplied with 
wagons, and then act as quick as possible, for this road 
will be jammed as sure as life.' 

' ' To this I replied : ' I do not calculate upon the possi- 
bility of supplying the army with full rations from Grand 
Gulf. I know it will be impossible without constructing 
additional roads. What I do expect is to get up what 
rations of hard bread, coffee and salt we can and make the 
country furnish the balance.'' 

' ' We started from Bruinsburg with an average of 
about two days' rations, and received no more from our 
supplies for some days ; abundance was found in the mean- 
time . 

" Beef, mutton, poultry, and forage were found in 
abundance. Quite a quantity of bacon and molasses was 
also secured from the country. 

" Every plantation, however, had a run of stone, pro- 
pelled by mule-power, to grind corn for the owners and 
their slaves. All these were kept running while we were 
stopping day and night, and when we were marching, dur- 
ing the night, at all plantations covered by the troops." 

As to the Army of the Potomac, its immensity and the 



IS Army of the Cumberland. 

small space occupied by it resulted iu the immediate con- 
sumption of all supplies found amongst the people. 

The population occupying the area held by the Army 
of the Cumberland was entirely different. 

We came to Kentucky in the summer of 1861, and it 
was the field of our operations to the spring of 1862. 

Kentucky was then, as always, a great state — great in 
her soil, forests, mines, agriculture, kingly men, queenly 
women . 

You were at least abreast of other communities any- 
where in all the elements of an advanced civilization. You 
had won honors in all the avocations and professions of 
life. 

In statesmanship, diplomacy and arms you had no 
superiors. You had fought on all the battle-fields of the 
nation from the beginning. 

Your state covered 41,263 square miles. Your popu- 
lation was then 919,484 whites, 10,687 free colored, 225,483 
slaves, and 33 Indians, making a total of 1,155,684. 
Owing to 3 r oiir geographical position, institutions, social 
and commercial relations with the states south and east of 
you, perhaps a half of your people preferred going out 
with the seceding states. In saying this, I am not un- 
mindful of the fact that in August of that year a majority 
of your voters declared by ballot for the Union ; but you 
will keep in mind that the women of Kentucky did not 
vote. If they had voted the Union party would have been 
swamped, and you know it. 

A Union recruiting camp and a Rebel recruiting camp 
near each other was not uncommon. 

Amongst your leading men of that day there was great 
diversity of opinion as to what action should be taken. A 



Annual Address. 13 



large neutral party sustained your Governor in posting no- 
tices and issuing proclamations forbidding the contending 
parties from entering Kentucky. 

Confederate generals were issuing orders covering 
your entire state. The property of Union men was being 
destroyed by Rebel neighbors and Kentucky guerrillas. 
These are unpleasant things to say, but you and I know 
them to be true. I, therefore, verily believe, from what I 
have stated and from what I saw and heard in Kentucky 
during those very dark days, that had Generals Ander- 
son, Thomas, Sherman and Buell on entering your state 
issued proclamations as did many other generals on enter- 
ing new fields, or had we arrested your people and seized 
your property as done by the other armies of the nation, 
Kentucky would have rebelled and been lost to the Union 
during our four years' war. Here, we were confronted 
with a political question, equal to if not greater than the 
military problem. 

How did we meet it? By general orders, and obe- 
dience to them, we convinced your people that we were 
seeking armed rebellion ; that we were not here to break 
down, but to build up ; that we were here to help you, not 
to hurt you ; that we were here to protect you in your 
families, homes, rights and property ; that we were not 
here to interfere with the institution of slavery ; that your 
slaves would not be molested by us or permitted to ren- 
dezvous in our camps ; that the property of your people 
would not be taken except upon absolute military necessity, 
and then by due authority and receipted for ; that we were 
here to fight for the life of a nation for which Kentucky 
blood had crimsoned all our battle-fields of the past. 

And although bad men flock to all armies, resulting 




Up Army of the Cumberland. 

in pilfering and pillaging, and although we were not free 
from these pests, we convinced you that we were a body of 
intelligent, respectable and responsible men, who loved 
war not for war's sake, but for the sake of our great repub- 
lic, which had grown to be the wonder of the world, the 
hope of the downtrodden of all lands. 

You believed us, and Kentucky was saved for the 
Union. 

You gave us not alone your political, moral and social 
influence, but in addition you gave us over seventy-five 
thousand as brave soldiers as ever drew a sword, wielded 
a saber or fired a gun. 

You will remember, my comrades, that we saw many 
sorrowful days during that war, days when the issue 
seemed to be in equipoise. 

When the Army of the Potomac retreated from the 
Peninsula ; when the brave men under Pope were slaugh- 
tered like sheep ; when Antietam ran red with the blood of 
our comrades ; when eleven thousand of them were use- 
lessly killed or wounded at Fredericksburg ; when Hooker 
was defeated at Chancellorsville ; when the balance hung 
in mid-air over the contending armies at Gettysburg ; when 
Grant struggled with Lee in the Wilderness and thence to 
the James ; when Buell abandoned all he had won from 
the Ohio to the Tennessee, excepting his garrison at Nash- 
ville ; when we were besieged in Chattanooga ; when we 
had to use armed force to suppress rebellion in the North, 
— how we recall the blanched cheeks, tearful eyes and 
choked utterances on those direful days. 

And then reflect : If Kentucky with her seventy-five 
thousand warriors had been on the other side, might not 
the scale have been turned against us? 



Annual Address. 15 



[General Wood (in the Chair) : Old Uncle Billy 
Sherman said that many a time] 

My Comrades, the crown of the Army of the Cumber- 
land is brilliant with gems representing victories on many 
fields of carnage, but none are brighter, none sparkle with 
more brilliant luster, than that which represents its work 
in holding Kentucky to the Union as the needle to the pole. 
She may have vacillated for a time ; but, like the needle, 
struck her true position, stopped there, stayed there — is 
there yet, and will be, I trust, to the end of time. 

You will also recall the condition of Tennessee when 
we entered that state. 

Her people had voted to leave the Union, and the state 
was considered by them as in the Confederacy. The Gov- 
ernor and other state officers had abandoned the state and 
"gone South." 

As a rule, judges, sheriffs, clerks and other court 
officials had also gone. 

No magistrates left to issue warrants or bailiffs to ex- 
ecute them. 

In fact the State of Tennessee, except the eastern 
part, was in a condition of " innocuous desuetude." 

We would find an immense plantation, in fine condi- 
tion, a mansion house fit for a king. All able-bodied 
white men had " gone South," the children, the women, 
the aged, infirm and slaves, were in charge. 

By the well-known policy of our army, these people 
and their property were saved and more carefully pro- 
tected by us than if their absent warriors had been at 
home. When the time came for restoration to statehood 
in the Union, our work of conciliation bore fruit, and 



16 Army of the Cumberland. 

Tennessee was soon in her normal condition again in the 
sisterhood of states. 

The make-up of our army has been well illustrated by 
the fact that since its dispersion, we find its members 
reaping honor and distinction in all walks, avocations and 
professions of life. From the presidential chair clear 
down to our town and county officers, the men of our army 
have distinguished themselves. 

Indeed, wherever you go in our country and in many 
others, the men of the Cumberland are there, the successful 
workers and leaders in the battle of life. We were in fact, 
an army of gentlemen. 

We will now look at the topography of our respective 
fields : 

It is doubtful if any army ever had a better field for 
military work than the Army of the Potomac. 

The Potomac river, the Chesapeake bay and the 
ocean gave it a base for the prompt transmission of sup- 
plies and re-enforcements not excelled by any other in the 
history of war. 

These waters were not only utilized for that purpose, 
but for war vessels of all kinds, sizes and descriptions, 
lending a helping hand everywhere and especially on the 
James river, where the gunboats and ironclads were 
avenging angels in the contests on and along its shores. 

Grant and McClellan bear positive, honorable and 
generous testimony to these facts. 

The gradual slope of the land constituting Eastern 
and Southeastern Virginia was an ideal field for the move- 
ments and battles of large armies, without let or much 
hindrance from rivers or mountains, excepting, however, 
the region of the Shenandoah, which passed from sight 



Annual Address. 17 



when they got a fighter from the Army of the Cumberland 
to clear it out. 

The topography of the scene of operations of the Army 
of the Tennessee was unique . 

The Mississippi and the navigable waters entering it 
were the bases for the operations of that army. 

From the rivers of the North and Northwest, contribu- 
tory to the Mississippi, supplies and re-enforcements were 
literally poured into and upon that army wherever and 
whenever needed. 

The noise of battle had scarcely ceased at Pittsburgh 
Landing and Shiloh, when steamer after steamer, with 
surgeons, doctors and nurses with all the paraphernalia for 
the care of the sick and wounded were anchored at the 
west bank of the Tennessee. 

Yea more, one steamboat in particular was loaded 
with coffins for the unfortunate dead. 

All the principal battles of the Army of the Tennessee, 
except the engagements back of Vicksburg, were fought on 
the banks of the rivers constituting the bases. 

From first to last, from Belmont to Vicksburg, the 
armed boats were the unfailing ally of the land forces. 

Commencing with Belmont, which was a defeat, the 
Tyler and Lexington were an especial feature in the battle, 
and saved the force from probable capture by conveying it 
from the field. 

Fort Henry was captured by the Tyler and Lexington 
and four iron-clads, three and a half hours before the land 
forces under General Grant arrived. 

In its next engagement, at Fort Donelson, the Caron- 
delet, St. Louis, Louisville, Pittsburgh, Tyler, Conestoga, 
and perhaps others were there, and although disabled 



18 Army of the Cumberland. 

before the contest closed, it was clear that but for them the 
issue would have been doubtful with the land force on 
hand. 

New Madrid and Island No. 10 were taken by the 
Western Flotilla under Commodore Foote. 

General Pope was in waiting with a land force of 
twenty-five thousand,' but could not take part in the 
action. 

Fort Pillow was taken by the Mississippi Flotilla. 

Memphis was a naval battle exclusively, fought on the 
Union side by Colonel Ellet. Ellet's young son landed 
and climbed to the top of the postofhce, tore down the 
Confederate flag and ran up the stars and stripes, and 
afterwards the city was formally surrendered by the mayor 
to Colonel Fitch, of the land force. 

The battle of Memphis was a battle royal between the 
Rebel and Union fleets, in which Colonel Ellet by the 
almost exclusive use of his rams destroyed the enemy's 
fleet. 

It is well attested history that had it not been for the 
work of the Tyler and Lexington at Pittsburgh Landing 
the result there would have been at least doubtful. 

After stating important service rendered by the gun- 
boats on the first day at Pittsburgh Landing, the Comte 
De Paris says in describing the night after the first day's 
battle: "During the entire night the two Federal gun- 
boats fired shells in the direction of the Confederate 
camps every ten minutes. 

"These enormous projectiles bursting among the trees, 
and breaking the branches with a dismal noise, did scarcely 
any harm ; but they caused considerable uneasiness to the 
troops who were so greatly in need of rest. These ex- 



Annual Address. 19 



plosions, regular as the tolling of a funeral bell, alone 
interrupted the silence, which, with nightfall, had suc- 
ceeded the tumult of the day." 

Of the Vicksburg campaign General Grant says : 

"The navy, under Porter, was all it could be during 
the entire campaign. Without its assistance the campaign 
could not have been successfuly made with twice the num- 
ber of men engaged. It could not have been made at all 
in the way it was with any number of men without such 
assistance." 

As to the topography of the field of the Army of the 
Cumberland we found Jefferson Davis' "concatenation" 
to be correct as to the natural barriers, but we waded, 
swam and bridged the creeks and rivers, climbed the 
rocks, ridges and hills, scaled the mountains to the key 
point of the "concatenation," and although then on half 
rations and four hundred miles from our base and sup- 
plies, our commander voiced the determination of every 
soldier in his army when he telegraphed General Grant 
"We will hold the town (Chattanooga) until we starve." 

The creeks, rivers, ridges and mountain ranges did 
not run our way as they mostly did with our sister armies, 
but persisted in crossing our pathway at all times and 
places. 

We were, to all intents and purposes, an invading 
army, and the well-known military axiom is that an in- 
vading army should have double the force of the army of 
resistance. After we crossed the Cumberland River it 
took a greater force to guard our communications than 
would have been necessarily required to guard the capitol 
city of the nation. 



20 Army of the Cumberland. 

The Armies of the Potomac and Tennessee fought their 
principal battles on base lines. The departures being 
when Grant fought his preliminary battles in the rear of 
Vicksburg and in his final Appomattox campaign. 

If Stone river could have floated even the Tyler and 
the Lexington to help us, our victory there would have cost 
us less than it did. 

If the Chickamauga had been navigable and stocked 
with gun-boats and ironclads, the history of that battle 
would be different from what it is to-day. 

Armed river boats could have been placed on the 
Upper Tennessee to help us if taken in hand in time, but 
it was not done. 

If the Tennessee had been traversed by gun-boats and 
iron-clads, in 1864, Hood's army of invasion nright have 
been finally halted there. 

If the Duck and the Harpeth had been navigable for 
gun-boats and iron-clads their presence there would have 
at least prevented the escape of whatever of Hood's army 
Thomas did not kill, wound or capture. 

These remarks are merely suggestive for thought, 
reflection, etc., in comparing the work of our three armies. 

The Army of the Tennessee captured Vicksburg and 
Pemberton's army July 4, 1864, and ended the fight on 
the Confederate left and the Union right. 

The Army of the Cumberland annihilated General 
Hood's great central Confederate Army at Nashville, De- 
cember 15 and 16, 1864, which ended the contest on the 
center of the chosen Confederate line. 

The Army of the Potomac captured General Lee and 
the army under his command April 9, 1865, at Appomattox, 
which ended the contest on our left and the Confederate 



Annual Address. 21 



right. And that ended the war, and the great battle line 
from the Potomac to the Mississippi passed into history. 

I think I have conclusively shown that, taking all con- 
ditions into consideration, the Armies of the Potomac and 
the Tennessee had vastly superior opportunities over the 
Army of the Cumberland, for the great and good results 
accomplished by them. 

As a general rule the strength of an army is well 
ascertained by the number it brings into battle. Battles 
are seldom unexpected, but are usually foreseen by both. 

The official records show that in the leading battles of 
the three armies, the Potomac and the Tennessee fought gen- 
erally with the preponderance of troops largely in their 
favor, and that with the Army of the Cumberland the pre- 
ponderance was the other way. 

It is to be regretted that we have no history of our 
army to give the general reader a clear statement of its life 
and work. 

We have had a vast amount of writing and speaking 
on the subject, but so clouded by details, technique, and 
the discussion of minor questions as to repel the general 
reader. 

We are much indebted to General Cist, General 
Cox, Chaplain Van Horne, and many others for their 
contributions. I may be pardoned for speaking especially 
of the gifted pen of our honored Corresponding Secretary, 
for what he has accomplished in that line and his apt ability 
in hitting a hostile head wherever and whenever he sees it. 

Our army has done one commendable thing in show- 
ing our work to the world, in the establishment and im- 
provement of our National Military Park at Chickamauga 
and Chattanooga. 



Army of the Cumberland. 



This will remain an object-lesson, we hope, for all 
time. No intelligent man, native or foreign, can examine 
our park without being led into its history and the story of 
the armies that consecrated that ground. 

We should labor individually and as an organization 
to add to the work already done there. 

We should yet have the Arch of Nationality, and many 
other things we have not. We should visit that park as 
often as possible, and take our families with us. We should 
take our children and grandchildren, and tell them of the 
military achievements of which the park is the monument. 
Every state represented in the battles of Chickamauga and 
around Chattanooga should erect a monument to the mem- 
ory of her sons who fought there. 

Monuments to many of our principal commanders on 
those fields will also come in time. 

Since we last met, being at Queenstown, Canada, I 
ascended the monument erected by the British Government 
in memory of her General Brock, killed at the battle of 
Queenstown Heights, in our War of 1812. 

It stands on a hill at the edge of the battlefield, the 
hill being about three hundred feet high and the monu- 
ment near two hundred feet, overlooking the field. The 
scene itself is entrancing, inspiring thought above the 
ordinary associations of life. Standing five hundred feet 
above the battle scene, to the northwest an apparently un- 
ending panorama of Canadian farms clothed in green, 
bedecked with their clean, white farm houses ; the cease- 
less monotone of the monster cataract rolls down from 
the south, broken by the intervening hills, valleys and 
palisades ; the tumult of angry waters in the Niagara on 
the right in their supernatural struggle for the lake — they 



Annual Address. 



drop into it and instantly are still as death : then, beauti- 
ful, placid Ontario, the dividing line between the two 
greatest nations of the day, seems to say to each, " Peace, 
be still." 

Then my mind ran back to our later battlefields, 
and particularly to those with which I am familiar, and 
really before I knew it, my hands were outstretched with a 
silent prayer to the Almighty Father, that he would spare 
my days on earth until I would see a statue of George H. 
Thomas on one of his fields of glory. 

And so I pray yet, and know that you will join me in 
that prayer. 

You may put it at Mill Springs, Stone River, Orchard 
Knob, Missionary Ridge, Chickamauga or Nashville, but 
don't put him on a brass horse. 

Neither the tongue of man nor the pen of the writer can 
describe him ; the brush and pencil of the painter nor the 
chisel of the sculptor can reproduce him. But do the best 
you can, and plaee it on a rock where in his working 
clothes and in all his magnificent simplicity he stood in 
the center of his semi-circle, Sunday afternoon, at Chick- 
amauga, with eye following his line from flank to flank, 
his line of fire, death and victory ! 

Under him let the chisel write : 

GEORGE H. THOMAS, 

THE ROCK OP CHICKAMAUGA. 
THE UNCONQUEEED CONQUEROR. 

And you may add the immortal words of Kentucky's 
Martial Poet : 

"The muffled drum's sad roll has beat 
The soldier's last tattoo, 



And glory guards in solemn rounds 
The bivouac of the dead." 



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